The escrow for the sale of our home in Maui was supposed to close about the 18th of November. On Nov 9th, we got a call from our realtor with bad news: because of past due tax liabilities on the part of the buyer, the lender will not finance the buyer's purchase of our house. The escrow fell through. Ugh! After making a trip back to Maui to finalize everything for the sale, we were going to be starting over - back on the market.

Our realtor got busy and Praise the Lord (literally!), we had a new offer on the table 4 days later, and a second offer 4 days after that. We counteroffered both potential buyers and ended up coming to an agreement with one of them. We were well prepared for the new escrow, since we had all the inspections, disclosures, etc. from the previous escrow. Our goal was to get the deal closed by the end of the year. That was going to take some doing, since it was a little over 30 days from the start of escrow, with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in between. Having to do the entire process from 5,000+ miles away presented a few more problems.